


Approximate Decimal Probability

by TawnyLocke



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Episode S01E04 - Let's Get to Scooping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:35:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2471774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TawnyLocke/pseuds/TawnyLocke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver should know better and he actually knows better.  Sometimes, that's never enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Approximate Decimal Probability

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to Season 1, Episode 4

Oliver tried Grindr before and it was with a sickening lurch in his stomach that he discovered that there were far too many men who thought Asian men were ugly and unworthy of sexual desire. _No rice._ No rice, no rice, no rice. Even from other Asian men, who would also declare that it wasn't self-loathing, merely preference and a lifetime of exposure to North American culture.

The worst part was that he felt the same, once. He could hardly throw stones when he used to live in a big glass mansion. 

He tried Grindr again and said that he was open to anyone looking for a good time. A fit of desperation, of loneliness, of fatigue borne of watching countless (white) men on Redtube and Gayforit grunting and screaming and having explosive orgasms and none for him. 

No one replied. He later figured out that people thought he was a serial killer, pedophile, or indiscriminate. It was better to put something really specific in your description, even if it was awful, because it meant that you already had something in common besides wanting to get off. 

Another worst part soon occurred to him: that being open to everybody was somehow as bad as the threat of a serial killer or pedophile. 

He deleted Grindr on his phone, changed his password associated with that account to a random key smash and didn't wear his glasses for that part, just in case. He went to bars as often as his pride and courage allowed, but by then, he ruefully thought that it may have been too late. Grindr was composed of people in his neighborhood. Any time he was in a bar or on a date, he couldn't help but wonder if these were men who were horrifically disappointed that what looked like a walking stereotype, an Asian man wearing glasses working in IT, was across the table from them. He tried to be funny, worked out more, slipped in mentions of the apartment that he lived in on his own, but Oliver was proud of his Masters degree in Computer Engineering, was proud of the life he'd built for himself. Every time he tried to defy the stereotype, he found himself resenting it more and more. 

I'm more than that, he thought. But maybe, another voice said in his head, that's all they'll ever see you as. Ching Chong with a small dick, but if you need your laptop fixed, he's your guy. 

__

***

Teresa worked in legal and often called in favors. She called them in before when she thought he was straight, and still called them in when she found out he was gay, mainly by flashing a picture of her coterie of gay male (white) friends. "Very open minded," she'd drawl out. "Three of them went to Singapore last year and had a great time."

On this go-around, she didn't waste any time on pleasantries and small talk. She went into his office, closed the door and said "Straight from the top. Suppress these emails. Keep them in the system but make sure they're hard to find. There can't be anything obviously hidden, erased or diverted to anyone looking." She stepped out of his office without the bait of her friends, and Oliver knew this was big and officially company related. 

"And Oliver?" She turned around, her lovely face in profile. "I need to reiterate the importance of our company's privacy and information policies."

He nodded to show he heard. Of course, he still read the emails.

***

Connor was a dream. Connor was a dream who thought he was desperate and stupid, and well, Oliver couldn't fault him for getting one but not the other, and he wasn't even entirely sure which one was right.

"I thought all you wanted were those emails," Oliver said, while Connor did remarkable, dirty, wonderful things with his mouth. He said other things, but the one that stuck was when Connor said _I want this, too._

"You cleaned up," Connor said, and Oliver could tell he was probably smiling his customary smirk. All his smiles looked like smirks, Oliver thought dizzily, because of that beautiful crooked mouth. You can't trust anything he says, because that crookedness was more than just on Connor's mouth.

"It's like the lottery," Oliver said.

Connor laughed. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you spend the dollar even when you know the odds of winning are low," Oliver gritted out. "Can you please get back to what you were doing now?"

"Olly, olly oxen free," Connor said in a singsong. 

"You have a terrible voice. I hate your voice." He heard Connor laugh again, and it sounded real.

Oliver tried to hold his reactions in, but Connor was so good. His tongue was doing tricks Oliver had only heard about or read about. He maybe saw them in the porn that he watched, but seeing and feeling were two different things. Time went liquid around him and he lost track of it, and since he wasn't wearing his glasses, the time warp looked real because everything was blurry.

His cock was pressed down on the mattress and trapped between his legs -- he'd never felt his hard and turned on before in his life. He arched up again when Connor licked a long line from the tip of his cock to his ass, and oh God, he couldn't bear it, he couldn't hold on and he let go with a low, surprised 'oh' that went long and got drawn out.

"Oh God," Oliver said, feeling like every cell in his body decided to relax at the same time.

"If you think I'm done," Connor said, and Oliver wished he could turn around and see his face, but his head felt welded to the pillow, "then you're in for a surprise." Curiosity got the best of him so he battled the pleasant lethargy to turn back and look. Connor had licked the come on the sheets -- so much of it -- and let it gather on his tongue. He kept licking up until he reached Oliver's cock, then Oliver's ass, and with a wink, he let what he'd gathered spill on Oliver's hole and plunged his tongue straight back in.

Oliver buried his face in the pillow and _screamed._

***

He maybe should have been subtler at work the next day. Some of the IT guys did double takes, and the ones who knew he was gay and had issues with it wrinkled their noses in distaste when they thought he wasn't looking. Teresa raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow when she followed up with the emails.

"How the hell did that email land with our previous lawyer?" she asked. "Can you trace it?"

"Of course I can," he said. "I'll have the results of my search by the end of the day."

I was desperate, Oliver thought, and Connor picked up on that. But he knew I was smart too.

"Cover your tracks at work," Connor had whispered before he left. "Don't get yourself in shit."

Oliver had received a text earlier today. _Say you traced the letter and it was in the files already with the previous attorney._

Maybe we can build on this. Maybe this is like the lottery. A million lost chances before getting the prize.

***

The next few weeks were like a drunken haze, if one could get physically drunk on sex. Connor was insatiable and Oliver found that he was too. He thought it was a weird sign of maturity, that he had a FWB. It almost didn't matter that he wanted more, because this felt like an actual step towards something else. He gave Connor the longest, most thorough blowjob he could give and Connor's dark eyes turned stupid with desire made everything seem inconsequential. Rimming was something he'd done only a few times, but Connor was a patient teacher who said that enthusiasm and the ability to learn quickly were all the skills required.

One night, Connor tugged him into the shower, a monstrosity Oliver had paid for with a huge ceiling mounted showerhead and sleek glass doors from floor to ceiling.

"Take a long, hot one," Connor said, his small, narrow mouth open slightly, breaths loud in the charged silence. "I just want to watch you."

Oliver took off his clothes -- "Slowly," Connor instructed -- and stepped in.

"I haven't been to the gym in a couple of weeks," Oliver said, his voice catching embarrassingly on 'weeks.' "There's a sex maniac who's been helping me burn calories in other ways." The warm water was sleek on his skin.

"What's his name?"

"Uh, Franklin."

"Gross. Don't go out with dudes named Franklin. Or Frank."

"There've been others," Oliver said.

"You said _a_ sex maniac, you nerd."

"I didn't want to make you insecure."

"What are their names?" Connor was still standing fully dressed, but his beautiful cock was in his hand, stroking himself with a slow and leisurely motion. Oliver knew he was compromised just then. He loved the smell and taste and feel of cock, but he'd never thought of them as particularly pretty.

"Brandon. Quinn. Zachary." Oliver didn't need any help making himself hard, not when that was the sight on the other side of the shower.

"Who's the hottest one? Don't lie to me." Connor's eyes, the expression on his face -- Oliver felt himself shiver despite the warm water.

"You know," Oliver said, and closed his eyes. Arched his neck back. He was about to put a hand on himself, but the steam escaped via the door and a warm mouth engulfed his cock and he put a hand on a firm shoulder under wet fabric. He opened his eyes and hunched down to cover Connor from the spray of water. Connor's eyes had that wild look and oh God, Oliver thought, please let this be real.

***

Oliver met the incredible Annalise Keating once. He was picking up Connor for a late dinner and the door was opened by a formidable black woman, who looked like she had just gotten in herself, her jacket off on one shoulder.

"What's she like, your boss?" Oliver had asked once after a particularly inspired night that left them both as tired and lazy as overfed cats.

"Smart. Quick on her feet. Think of the most intimidating person you've ever met and multiply it by 10."

Oliver's grandmother Ferdelina ran a chain of Asian food markets with three locations in Denver. His first computer job was for her, overseeing the modernization of her stores' computers, which were still huge space wasting relics from the late 90s. He loved her and he was in awe of her and he was intimidated by her, and depending on her mood, it was sometimes difficult to sort out which came first of the three, but intimidation was a constant impression.

"Hello," Oliver said. "I'm looking for Connor."

Annalise Keating took one good long look at him. "Do you do freelance work outside of your day job?"

"No ma'am."

"Professor Keating."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Keating." She nodded at that, and Oliver retracted the hand he had extended.

"Mr. Walsh will meet you outside. I assume he's wrapping up," she said.

"Thank you."

"Reconsider the freelancing. I pay well," she said, turning away. "Walsh," she said in a voice that Oliver imagined an underwater current must sound like, "one of your notches is waiting for you outside."

In the span of time after things had collapsed, he wondered if she already knew back then about how Connor was, how he could be. And came to the decision that of course she did, because she spent more time with Connor than Oliver ever did for their entire relationship. She benefited most from Connor's extracurriculars, and maybe in her own way, she was already making contingency plans for an asset that might be lost the minute things turned sour.

***

The statistics state that a majority of lottery winners who won when they had low incomes had a higher chance of going bankrupt in the future. Oliver knew this but he still gambled. The end shouldn't have been a surprise. It still was, enough that it felt like something had punctured his lung but some ugly bit of it remained behind, that when he turned around on certain days or heard his phone on certain times that he still expected a knock on the door later, sly eyes looking up, a clever tongue in new places or saying provocative things. A warm body at night to hold, stubble burn on his legs and back and nape and cheeks and chest.

It had only existed in weeks, but in the delirium of it all, it had felt incredibly longer, because he let himself believe the potential of it, and that potential felt like lifetimes folded in on each other, one richer than the other before it, the one after richer still.

 _I like you. Actually._ That space between 'you' and 'actually' -- was that enough? Could it have been enough? He knew he deserved better, but that ugly part of him that spoke up on his worst days said maybe that pause between those words was all he could get, and he should have been grateful for even that much.

 

SEVEN WEEKS LATER

Connor was still breathing harshly sitting on his couch, but he looked a little better now, at least in Oliver's estimation. His smelly clothes were in the wash on his insistence. 

Connor looked small in the extra large MIT sweatshirt Oliver had loaned him, and the pajama bottoms dragged on the floor when he walked. His hair was slick from the shower.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I know it's early."

"I'm not working today. Company is making us use our holidays. They don't transfer from year to year."

Connor looked up and he seemed so lost. Oliver didn't prepare for this, and he felt his defenses shake -- that look was a solid hit to the foundation.

"I was part of a CERT team, you know that?" Oliver said, sitting on his coffee table so he could look Connor directly in the eyes. "It's like emergency training for computers."

"This isn't a computer issue."

"Let's treat it like one."

Connor buried his face in his hands and like a reflex, Oliver found himself leaning in to nuzzle in Connor's wet hair and recognized the minty smell of his shampoo.

"I thought you hated my Head & Shoulders shampoo."

"I refuse to believe you have a dandruff problem. I don't go with people who have dandruff."

"It ran in our family. Preventative measure." Oliver took a deep breath. "What's wrong, Connor?"

A lengthy silence. Oliver felt his heartbeat pick up the longer it went on, because this was bad.

"I...accidentally made a computer virus," Connor said, his voice still muffled.

Oliver felt his world start and shudder, a harsh crack underground. "Did you run an anti-virus program?"

Connor looked up, tears coursing down his face. "Not the right one," he finally said. "Something I did the code for myself."

"Oh, Connor." Oliver felt his eyes prickle with moisture. "You could barely even handle Excel."

Connor's laugh was ugly but real. "I didn't mean to," he said. "It just happened." He took a deep breath and clasped Oliver's face in his hands. "That's all you can know, OK? I'm sorry I came here in the first place." He placed a gentle kiss on Oliver's forehead, and Oliver felt it like a hit on the knees, a blunt force that laid him down low. 

He got up from the coffee table and sat beside Connor, whom he then tugged down on his lap. They maneuvered themselves so that they were both comfortable, Oliver sitting up with his back against the armrest, Connor in between his legs with his head on Oliver's lap. He ran his fingers through Connor's wet hair.

"You're too good for me," Connor said, his voice drifting off. "You were always too good for me."

Oliver smiled, but its edges tasted bitter. "I can save you for one night. I don't think I can do more than that. I really want to though."

Connor got up from his position. "That's one more night than I deserve."

Oliver closed the gap between them. Their kiss was desperate, and though it felt like they had just started, Oliver knew they were already out of time.

THE END


End file.
